Friday, August 15, 2008

In Taiwan society, it is considered inappropriate if teenagers have boyfriends or girlfriends before they are in college. Young boys and girls are warned that falling in love makes a bad impact on their schoolwork. It’s not worth if they don’t get into a good college because of such a reason.However, this kind of warning actually makes no sense but affects the young in bad way. Students in junior high senior high shouldn’t be forbid falling in love. Otherwise, they should be encouraged to make friends with opposite genders.

Here are the reasons: first, kids’ bodies become full-grown at teen ages. They will be curious to the other genders naturally. In ancient time, most of the boys and girls are even married in our ages. It’s our society that delays the original marriage period. It’s unmoral that we even keep the teenagers from knowing how to love. Plus, their mentalities don’t grow with their bodies. If they don’t have the right notions of love, they may experience sex too early and make the problem worse. We also heard some unbelievable news from TV. Take a female teacher’s story for example. She’s 32 and never has a boyfriend before. She was cheated by her first man. The man asked her to give her whole backlog. She did. However, the man left her right after she gave him the money. Unfortunately, this is not a single example. Something similar keeps happening in Taiwan society. They are all result from the poor knowledge of how to associate with opposite genders.

Second, the things that the parents and teachers are afraid of are actually cause by themselves. Because of the cautions, teenagers have to find ways to against it. They have boyfriends or girlfriends secretly. They get up late in night to make the phone calls or find excuses to meet each others. In such a situation, can they do well at school? When their secret love is discovered, they can’t avoid facing a family storm. Some even break the relationship to parents. Obviously, we can see that parents and teachers’ ban against natural association of young boys and girls is actually the origin of all the bad results. If the adults change their attitude, things will certainly be better. Children can share their feelings in love with their parents. They can discuss and experience it together. If the young get hurt, parents can soothe them and teach them by their own experiences. Thus, teenagers learn how to love in a healthy way.

Therefore, we should encourage young students to befriend the opposite genders not to forbid it. Students shouldn’t only learn Math, Physics or other subjects at school, but love lessons in lives. How can we ban their learning rights? If you are an adult, please use the positive attitude to face the young’s association. If you are a teenager, don’t afraid of falling in love. Go ahead and learn things from all kinds of genders!

Friday, August 8, 2008

According to recent news, Tainan elementary schools are going to cancel all the tests for the students in first and second grade. For the third and the forth grade students, their tests amount are going to be cut down. They only have Chinese and Mathematics two subjects in big exams. ( They also have Science and Social Study originally.) The educational government declared that it helps elementary students enjoy happier lives. “Fewer tests, less pressure.” they said. However, does this really do good to younger students? Being a student, I’m sure that tests are necessary. After studying, tests can help us recognize the summary of the text, catch the key points and also find out the questions that we still not understand. Tests also push us to study. We learn from tests. With them, students can never study well.

In my opinion, the new policy may leads to two serious problems. The first one: it gives students more pressure in higher grades.When kids grow up, they still have to face the pressure of having tests. However, they have less practice and fewer experiences in early ages. Something like the entrance exam doesn’t change. They can’t get rid of some expected stress. Why don’t put the pressure on them gradually but suddenly? Does this really make them relieved? I don’t think so. The second one: it makes the attitude of parents much more different.Taiwan’s entrance exam system develops a stressful learning environment. In this kind of situation, parents’ attitude can be really important. In school, you can tell that some students who receive a lot of care from families. They often do above their classmates. Their parents are always worried too much. They check the kids’ homework. They pay and let their children go to cram schools to study more about Chinese, English, Math, etc, and learn more about playing piano, swimming, drawing, etc. Let’s call this kind of parents positive parents. On the other hand, there are some parents who are always busy with their work. They think that students should study on their own. It doesn’t mean that they don’t love their children. But in fact, they do pay less attention on kids’ schoolwork. As a result, students may find the way to shirk. Sometime, they forget to study. Let’s call this kind of parents negative parents. Two different kids are given different kind of education. It leads to the Two-Peak Phenomena. Without the school tests, the phenomenon gets more serious. The grade is invisible. Parents don’t know the situation of their kids’ studying. The positive parents are worried much more and pay to let their kids to learn more. The negative parents will never notice whether their kids are studying or not. One side of the young students have much more pressure. The other side of students have worrying future. Does this do good to kids? While the most stressful entrance exam system is unchanged, such a policy brings no benefit for we students. What we are going to improve first is the attitude of facing education. If we learn simply because we want to learn more, not for the tests, it brings the true happiness. This policy makes no use under Taiwan educating system.